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[biggsy]

This is weird; MC26, seems to affect songs that are also on a playlist, but every so often, MC switches a couple of the tags around, most often song title (Name) and artist.

The underlying file's tags are fine, so it seems to be a database issue.

I've tried re-running auto-import which has fixed a couple of other issues, but this one persists and is getting kind of annoying.

Just wondered if anyone else has noticed the same. I guess my next option is to reset the database and start again.

[BigSpider]

Not seeing that here.

[RoderickGI]

I guess my next option is to reset the database and start again.

Do not do that. It would only make things worse, and give you a world of grief.

Usually when people report this sort of issue there is some other program being used in parallel or running in the background changing tags of the file, which MC then changes back (hence they look alright to you), which the other application changes back, etc.

As you say the underlying file's tags are fine, can I assume that you are using some other software to check that? If so, it could be the problem.

You could try turning off Auto Import or just "Update tags for external changes" and observe what happens.

Investigate further. Find the cause. Because starting from scratch won't fix the issue. Understanding what is going on and fixing it will.

[biggsy]

Hi,

The only apps that I have that could influence the tags are dbPoweramp (dbPa), iTunes and MC26.

I use dbPa to do the initial rip from CD, checking the tags that will be written. The ripped tracks are then imported into iTunes; the tags at that point are as I would have expected. I have checked them with dbPa's tag viewer, the native Widows 10 'File properties', and MP3Tag. All tags when viewed through all 3 apps show the same result: Tag 'Name' contains the track's title, and 'Artist' the artist.

In MC26 however, *some* of those tag values are switched around; the tracks with the switched around tags in MC26 are still OK when checked using the previously mentioned apps, hence my suspicion that MC26 is getting confused somewhere.

There is however the possibility that the corruption (if it is such) may be from a historic version so I'm curious why resetting the database is such a bad idea?

[RoderickGI]

I'm curious why resetting the database is such a bad idea?

Because not all MC fields are stored in tags, so you will lose a lot of data. If you start again with an empty database you will have a lot of work ahead of you. If you try to keep all the Custom fields and Views you may have created over time by deleting files out of the Library, then MC's process to recover all field data for deleted files comes into play.

It is far better to identify and fix the underlying problem. Perhaps that would help avoid it in the future as well.

Look at the Tag Dump area in the tag window to see if you can spot any problem. Search the forum for "Tag Dump" if you don't know how to do that.

Sometimes a file will have both a "Title" and "Name" tag, so MC needs to pick one. It just seems very unlikely that MC would swap field values around, or a whole lot of people would be complaining. There are some tools that allow examination of the raw tag information, though I can't think of them right now. Maybe viewing the raw tag and their naming would show something. Windows Explorer is a very unreliable tool to check tags. MP3Tag would be better.

Perhaps share a track or three that exhibits the problem, and we can see if it occurs when we import them.

Finally, your workflow is very convoluted. dbPa > iTunes > MC26. I would at least go dbPa > MC26 > iTunes, although I just rip in MC these days. Sure, the metadata isn't always there, or as good as dbPa, but I no longer use any other tools for ripping, tagging, or playback. Maybe I should, but MC works fine for me. I left the evil Apple empire a long time ago!

[biggsy]

I think I may have found something. Workflow issues aside, I used iTunes to export a playlist of my 'Favourites' (in M3U format).

I then used MC26 to import the playlist so I had the same playlist in MC26 (never mind why for now). Every single one of the tracks on the resulting playlist have the artist and track title switched around yet the underlying tag data is fine (checked tag dump, couldn't see any possibility for confusion in the tags).

Just retried the same import but this time using .txt format and so far the import in MC26 looks to be OK

[BigSpider]

Aaah! No itunes on my system. Does it do the same switch of tags if you export the playlist from itunes in m3u8 format?

[RoderickGI]

Biggsy, I know MPL format Playlist files can change fields in MC, but I didn't know M3U format files could.

I wouldn't mind having a look inside one of your bad M3U files. Care to share one with us?

[biggsy]

M3U8 format playlists show the same behaviour.

I've created a brand-new playlist (attached) in iTunes containing 3 randomly selected tracks that don't appear on any of my other playlists. I exported the playlist in M3U format and then imported to MC26. Sure enough, all three tracks are showing in MC26 with Artist and Title switched. Tag dump for all three tracks has the relevant tags populated correctly, as do other tagging tools (eg MP3Tag).

Being slightly paranoid I've amended the true path to the music track but I'm sure you get the idea. I've also attached a screengrab from MC26 Playlists view so you can see how the results appear. To get around the file extension restrictions I've had to change the playlist file extension from .m3u to .txt - just rename it back and you should be good.

Let me know if you'd like me to run any more tests.

[Matt]

Does the M3U contain artist and track names?  I just made a simple M3U (filenames only) and imported it and the files stayed the same in MC.

Thanks.

[biggsy]

Well a typical entry for a single track is:
#EXTINF:196,Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - The Commitments
<path to music folder>\Music\The Commitments\The Commitments\09 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.m4a

The track title and artist info is there but would need a heavy (and possibly risky) parsing process to extract the bits.

I'd rather assumed that MC was using the info contained in the file's tags to populate its internal database.

I understand what you're saying Matt, but I can repeat this over and over with the same result. The only import that seems to work (and even then I'm not 100% convinced) is saving the playlist in .txt (which looks like a CSV file to my eyes)

[Matt]

I only get the metadata in the M3U read if the file isn't already in the library.

So if I make a new file like this:
#EXTINF:5,Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - The Commitments
C:\Temporary\1.ape

It pulls it in with the information in the M3U.

But shouldn't that information by right, so even if we did pull it in, it would be fine?

Thanks.

[biggsy]

Not sure I understand what you're saying.

My 3 files already exist in MC with correct tags both internal (MC database) and external (on the files themselves)

I then use 'File -> Import Playlist...' and select the test playlist from the directory where I exported to it from iTunes a moment or two before.

I then look at the songs in the Playlist view, or find them in the main 'All songs' view, and the three files all have artist & title swapped around.

This is why this is bugging me - having spotted the incorrect tags, I spent ages correcting them only to have a subsequent 'sync' of Playlists iTunes -> MC messed them all up again.

I use iTunes as my primary cataloging system because I have several 'i' devices that I want to copy music to, which I can only do through iTunes, and several other devices that I can only sync through MC.

On either platform I want to keep my Playlists in-line with each other so over the years I've got into treating iTunes as 'master' doing all updates there and exporting to other applications.

[Matt]

Well I understand the issue.

This playlist:
#EXTINF:196,Do Right Woman, Do Right Man - The Commitments
<path to music folder>\Music\The Commitments\The Commitments\09 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.m4a

We read the artist as "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and name as "The Commitments".

That matches the formatting here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U

But it sounds like this is wrong for your playlists.

Are the values right in iTunes when you export?

We're getting closer.  Thanks for the help.

[Matt]

It looks like we read one way and iTunes writes another way.  The specification is pretty clear, so this is frustrating!

[biggsy]

Hi Matt,

Firstly, thanks for the help, I do appreciate it.

Yes, I see what you mean about the M3U spec - it does look like iTunes is writing them in the wrong order.  I've attached a screengrab of how the track appears in the 'Song Info' panel in iTunes -  you can see that the various bits are all in the right fields.I checked the underlying file in and the tags on the file match those shown in iTunes.

I'll do a bit of reading about iTunes playlist formatting to see what I can turn up.

Let me know if there's something else to try in the meantime.

[biggsy]

Just for fun, here's the same playlist exported in XML format (again, had to change the file extension to .txt to allow upload)

[Matt]

I have an idea we'll play with for the next build.  Stay tuned and thanks for the help.

[RoderickGI]

Well, a problem identified is a problem half solved!

It seems very strange that iTunes would get the Artist and Title reversed like that in an M3U Playlist. Maybe there is a way in iTunes to correct that, or in a configuration file somewhere, although I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't. Apple. Hmmm.

[JimH]

Hmmm

[RoderickGI]

Hmmm

    Just like Apple to do things differently, and wrong! The new Apple Music App currently appears to require an export to a text file and then copy and paste to transfer Playlists out of the Library into another App! Not that I have installed it, or intend to, so maybe the article I read was wrong... Nah.

It looks like they have always created M3U format Playlists that way. It's a bit surprising that no-one noticed before now.

Biggsy, does the iTunes XML format Playlist import into MC correctly? It would be probably be better to use than the TXT format, which is just a tab delimited text file, and also outputs in the sequence "Name" "Artist". At least the XML version is somewhat human readable and is specific about which fields the data is referring to, rather than just leaving it to be assumed. Although I guess the text file does have a header line to define the metadata.

[biggsy]

Well the XML experience is a bit odd - once I'd figured out what was going wrong, I thought XML would be a better options because of the metadata that it contains.

I can import an XML playlist into MC but nothing happens - no playlist appears. The import dialog says that its imported one file by no playlist, not in 'imported playlists' nor in the main playlists list. This is a shame because I'd hoped that was going to be my work-around.

The XML playlist *does* appear in the 'Recently imported' view but just as an 'xml' entry (screengrab attached). Perhaps I should check in case iTunes has decided to write the XML file out in Latin....nope, looks like they've stuck to English, and in a sort of sensible structure, so not sure why MC can't/isn't importing it.

I totally accept that this is more an Apple issue than MC so I wouldn't blame you if you just said 'tough' but if you were inclined to "fix" it, one option may be to add a radio-button type question to the 'Import playlist...' option that asks if the playlist originated from iTunes or another application and then parse the imported list depending on the answer?

Interestingly (??), I use Asset UPnP from the dbPoweramp product line up to do my music serving to my devices and this uses the same playlists the MC is using (they all point to the same folder). However, as far as I can tell, Asset shows track title & artist 'properly' - suspect it may be reading the tags for this however.

[Matt]

Next build will have this:
Changed: When importing an M3U, we count the artists and names and switch them if there are more artists because iTunes does not follow the specification.

Note that we also support the iTunes XML format.  Using that is probably better since it's more specific about the fields.

Thanks for all your help.

[biggsy]

Not a problem, happy to help.
Not sure why my iTunes XML import doesn't work though  ?

[RoderickGI]

Biggsy, you are using the "File > Import Playlist" function I hope, and not just importing the Playlist as you would say an MP3 file?

I guess you must be, as MC can't import an XML file as a Document. Drag and Drop of an XML file to the Playlists area also imports the file as a Playlist correctly.


I just ran Import Playlist for TXT, XML, and M3U playlist files from iTunes, in that sequence.

The TXT and XML versions worked fine and showed the Name and Artist correctly. They did show up in the "Recently Imported" Playlist.

However, the M3U reversed Name and Artist as discussed above, and reversed the fields for the TXT and XML based Playlists as well. It also reversed the fields in the Album View, and in the Tag Window, but not in the Tag Dump area, or in the file tags themselves.

I deleted the Imported Playlists and repeated the process to be sure. So I guess I have confirmed what you reported.


The reason for doing the above was to confirm that importing and XML Playlist from iTunes does work for me, when I use the "File > Import Playlist" function and Drag and Drop. My iTunes XML Playlist looks the same as yours, in format and layout.

[biggsy]

You’ve also proved that I’m not going mad 

All playlist imports of any kind have always been done through File -> Import playlist

Can’t explain why my XML import appears to do nothing if you say it’s working ok on your setup

[biggsy]

XML import doesn't work at all, whether imported through File -> Import Playlist, nor through Drag & Drop.

In the D&D method, i can grab the file in a Windows Explorer window and drag it to the playlists view (the cursor shows 'Copy'). If I then drop the XML file i get a new Playlist called 'New Playlist' that contains the XML file (see screengrab)

[Matt]

I noticed that the XML import is importing the files into the playlist section of the database instead of the main section of the database.

This seems incorrect to me, so next build we'll try this:
Changed: Files from a playlist import now are imported into the main database (instead of only the playlist database).

Note that if the files were already imported, it shouldn't have mattered.

[RoderickGI]

In the D&D method, i can grab the file in a Windows Explorer window and drag it to the playlists view (the cursor shows 'Copy'). If I then drop the XML file i get a new Playlist called 'New Playlist' that contains the XML file (see screengrab)

That's what I see with D&D as well. But it does add contents to the New Playlist.

Note that if the files were already imported, it shouldn't have mattered.

In all my testing the audio files themselves had already been imported. I was just creating Playlists. That may be a difference to your situation Biggsy.

Wait. I did do some testing connected to my MC Server, where the files weren't directly available to the MC Client I was on, and in that case, the Playlist contents weren't filled out. MC checked each file, found it not available, and removed it from the Playlist.

[biggsy]

No, your test is basically the same as mine. My MC database contains a reference to each of the physical music files so all I’m importing is a new playlist as the music files are already in place.

Happy to help beta test if you’d like; I’m a software engineer myself, already enrolled in beta test programs for other products so if I can be of help let me know.